New CSP study argues climate change must be incorporated into highway crossing planning to benefit wildlife now and into the future
by Conservation Science Partners
November 19, 2024
A new publication by Conservation Science Partners scientists and collaborators addresses a critical gap surrounding highway wildlife crossings: the need to expressly consider the impacts of climate change. Published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the paper underscores that wildlife crossings are crucial to reducing wildlife mortality and enhancing habitat connectivity—not to mention ensuring driver safety—and yet rarely is climate change considered in their planning and prioritization. The paper synthesizes the science surrounding wildlife crossings and climate adaptation, offers expert-informed recommendations for incorporating climate considerations, and demonstrates the importance of doing so through a case study in southwestern Colorado.
The Colorado case study puts those recommendations into action by empirically prioritizing candidate wildlife crossing locations to explicitly account for how climate change may shift wildlife movements—in this case, elk migration. CSP Senior Scientist and paper co-author Dr. Justin Suraci led this modeling effort with a novel approach to map where elk migration routes are likely to shift in the future—and thus where they are likely to intersect with roadways—by accounting for projected changes in temperature, precipitation, vegetation cover, land-use, and traffic. These models revealed which candidate wildlife crossing locations are likely to support elk movement both today and in a warmer future. The results suggest possible targets for initial climate-informed wildlife crossing investments.
“Our findings show that we can identify places for reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions now that are also likely to remain effective as environmental conditions change,” says Suraci. “By planning with climate change in mind, we can create long-term solutions for both animals and people.”
Read the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.2816